Cameron said the movie, set in the future on an alien planet being pillaged by humans for natural resources, deals with how indigenous people are treated by newcomers.

"It's a way of connecting a thread through history. I take that thread further back to the 16th and 17th centuries and to how the Europeans pretty much took over South and Central America and displaced and marginalized the indigenous peoples there," he said.

But a smiling Weaver said only, "I consider it an old-fashioned, epic swashbuckling romance."

"Avatar" is Cameron's first narrative film since 1997's "Titanic," which won 11 Academy Awards and has taken in $1.8billion worldwide at the box office.